Second UK-designed and manufactured Mazak unveiled

"The first Mazak machine to have been designed and manufactured completely in the UK was the VTC 800/30SR.", said Dr John Liverton, Yamazaki Mazak's general manager, design engineering. "Since its launch at EMO 2007, the VTC 800/30SR has been one of Mazak's most successful new products in recent times. This success has now led to the UK-based European design engineering team being asked to develop the range further, and we are delighted with the performance and capability of the resulting VTC 820/30." Driven by demand from customers throughout Europe, the VTC 820/30 offers a cost-effective solution with a fixed head for rigid and fast 3-axis machining of a wide range of components, with the option for adding a fourth axis, by way of a Mazak rotary table. "Some customers who were asking for a machine of this capacity were not looking for the addition of the B-axis provided by the existing VTC 800/30SR," explained Dr Liverton. "Therefore, we have maintained the original 3,000 mm bed length, while at the same time adding an additional 20 mm to the Y-axis travel, giving 820 mm in total with the new VTC 820/30." Other machine highlights include the machine spindle, which employs four bearings at the spindle nose end and which allows optimum performance whether machining light alloys at high speeds or taking heavy cuts at lower speeds; plus, the innovative tool change mechanism, which transfers tools through the machine's vertical column, dramatically reducing chip-to-chip times when compared to machines of similar size and capacity - typically, the servo-driven tool changer is delivering chip-to-chip times of just 4.7 seconds.